Question: What are the most frequently asked questions about SMTP Servers and ISPs?

Answer: When using Advanced Mailer, some questions can arise about using SMhttp://www.emailarms.com/faq/smtp_faq.htmlTP servers and configuring multiple sending servers. To answer most commonly asked questions, we prepered this SMTP and ISP FAQ.

What is SMTP?
SMTP is an acronym for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. Majority of internet providers novadays, use this protocol to send email. When using SMTP, there should be a client sending the messages and the server receiving them. Advanced Emailer utilizes this protocol and acts as SMTP client to distribute email messages to subscribers. In most cases you will configure and use your Advanced Emailer the same way you do with your regular email client like Microsoft Outlook. You will specify the SMTP server that Internet provider gave you. When the SMTP Client sends email messages, it connects to the SMTP server you have specified and communicates to it using SMTP protocol.

Is my ISP’s Server enough?
That would depend on the amount of mail you are sending. The general answer would be: Yes. In most cases one SMTP server would be enough for your small to medium corporation needs. Only if you have a large business and you are sending tens of thousands of email messages every day, you might consider getting more than one SMTP Server. You can configure as many SMTP servers as you want in the Advanced Emailer.

Is it legal to send email through my ISP, will he not consider it spam?
When you have a legitimate busieness and you are sending only subscription based email messages to your customers or people who explicitly asked for it, giving them a way to unsubscribe themselves from the mailing list, it is not considered a bad practice or spam. You can refer to the What is spam and to What is not spam FAQ’s in order to get a better idea about the spam problem.

Will the ISP terminate my account for sending so many emails?
That will depend on your agreement with your provider, and the amount of messages you are sending. When you have a small buseness and you are sending 100-200 messages a day, your ISP will probably not even notice that. If you are becoming a larger enterprice, you should consider getting into a special agreement with your ISP, or installing and using your own SMTP Servers (There are many servers available for free on the internet like Sendmail at http://www.sendmail.org).

What is SMTP Relay?
SMTP Relay is a service provided by most modern SMTP Servers. Whenever you send email to someone that is not on the same network as you are, somebody will need to deliver that email. This includes retrying in case the connection on the other party is slow and, in some cases, sending bounce back messages, informing you that this recepient cannot be reached. If you utilize an ISP’s server, you can most likely count on the fact, that the server will be always up and running for you when you need it.